I use Gw2LaunchBuddy as stated by others, but you can also just use a batch file to close the process and launch another copy as well. I used to use a batch file, but I definitely prefer LaunchBuddy now, it has some great features. I sometimes launch 4 accounts at once.

That must be a windows thing with the client. On the mac I can run some game applications more than once from command line (not double-clinking, actually running the application in the .app directory) but GW2 complains if I try it.

Long version, GW2 uses a mutex (AN-Mutex-Window-Guild Wars 2) to ensure that only a single instance can be opened. You need a utility capable of killing this mutex, such as Process Explorer. When running GW2, you use the -sharearchive option, which essentially puts GW2 in read-only mode, allowing multiple processes to read Gw2.dat. All of this can be done using a power shell script, without the need of other software.

Please note that if your keyboard/mouse are able to control both copies at the same time, you will get permanently banned from the game. To protect yourself, please ensure that you are not able to control both instances simultaneously.

@mtpelion.4562 said:
Please note that if your keyboard/mouse are able to control both copies at the same time, you will get permanently banned from the game. To protect yourself, please ensure that you are not able to control both instances simultaneously.

While the first sentence is factual true, your second sentence makes it sound as if this could happen "by accident" so that people would need to pay attention for it not to happen. As far as I know, this will never happen on a normal Windows machine, as your mouse/keyboard always goes to the active window/application, no matter how many instances of it you have managed to start.

If it goes to more than one window/application at once, this would have to be explicitly enforced by some software that I don't know (if such software even exists).
So in short, no user should need to "protect himself" from it, because those with machines where this can happen probably have put a ton of effort into making sure that it can happen, know well what they are doing, and that they shouldn't.

YouTube “L2villagejester”.
People using belittling wording like whining/qqing" are not taken seriously by me
Same for people posting only to tell others not to post (“deal with it”-posts)

@mtpelion.4562 said:
Please note that if your keyboard/mouse are able to control both copies at the same time, you will get permanently banned from the game. To protect yourself, please ensure that you are not able to control both instances simultaneously.

While the first sentence is factual true, your second sentence makes it sound as if this could happen "by accident" so that people would need to pay attention for it not to happen. As far as I know, this will never happen on a normal Windows machine, as your mouse/keyboard always goes to the active window/application, no matter how many instances of it you have managed to start.

If it goes to more than one window/application at once, this would have to be explicitly enforced by some software that I don't know (if such software even exists).
So in short, no user should need to "protect himself" from it, because those with machines where this can happen probably have put a ton of effort into making sure that it can happen, know well what they are doing, and that they shouldn't.

I was approaching it from the perspective of "if you are using third party software to get multiboxing up and running, make sure it doesn't allow simultaneous control".

I'm not a multiboxer, so I'm not sure what the capabilities are, just what the official position on it is.

Theres also a method where you have two shortcuts in which you type in the adressbar your email and password.
While this works well, if anyone can see into your pc they can obviously read the password.

To defeat the dragons, see the good in them.
Zhaitan reunites lost ones, primordus creates fertile land, mordremoth spreads the green, and jormag..
..jormag? Who's that?

@Healix.5819 said:
Long version, GW2 uses a mutex (AN-Mutex-Window-Guild Wars 2) to ensure that only a single instance can be opened. You need a utility capable of killing this mutex, such as Process Explorer. When running GW2, you use the -sharearchive option, which essentially puts GW2 in read-only mode, allowing multiple processes to read Gw2.dat. All of this can be done using a power shell script, without the need of other software.

I run 4 accounts on my machine using the -SharedArchive parameter. No extra software is necessary except a text editor for manually editing each copy of the .exe file for each account. I use a simple batch file to update the accounts whenever there is a build update.

Works like a charm!! I am able to take all 4 accounts into my main accounts home instance to farm the nodes by moving my mouse to each window one by one.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:
Can you elaborate? I thought LaunchBuddy did exactly this, plus offer ways to save different configuration options and control the launch of various AddOns.

LaunchBuddy started out as a command line assistant, then later added basic support for launching multiple accounts. I've never used it, so I only know what it can do from the reddit posts, plus the complaints about it sometimes not working and problems with patching / having to manually update. I thought they added this feature, but I didn't see it listed, so fun fact, for every launch, GW2 will create a new %temp%/gw2cache folder, which can quickly add up.

Gw2Launcher is my personal launcher I made back when they did the $10 accounts, which is specifically for running multiple accounts. As such, I have features built around that, such as pre-configuring window sizes and positions, individual volume control (because the in-game master volume is bugged and applied twice to videos), the ability to cache patches (because each Local.dat file needs to be patched for ~30 MB) and download them while you're still playing. I just don't advertise.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:
Can you elaborate? I thought LaunchBuddy did exactly this, plus offer ways to save different configuration options and control the launch of various AddOns.

LaunchBuddy started out as a command line assistant, then later added basic support for launching multiple accounts. I've never used it, so I only know what it can do from the reddit posts, plus the complaints about it sometimes not working and problems with patching / having to manually update. I thought they added this feature, but I didn't see it listed, so fun fact, for every launch, GW2 will create a new %temp%/gw2cache folder, which can quickly add up.

Gw2Launcher is my personal launcher I made back when they did the $10 accounts, which is specifically for running multiple accounts. As such, I have features built around that, such as pre-configuring window sizes and positions, individual volume control (because the in-game master volume is bugged and applied twice to videos), the ability to cache patches (because each Local.dat file needs to be patched for ~30 MB) and download them while you're still playing. I just don't advertise.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:
Can you elaborate? I thought LaunchBuddy did exactly this, plus offer ways to save different configuration options and control the launch of various AddOns.

LaunchBuddy started out as a command line assistant, then later added basic support for launching multiple accounts. I've never used it, so I only know what it can do from the reddit posts, plus the complaints about it sometimes not working and problems with patching / having to manually update. I thought they added this feature, but I didn't see it listed, so fun fact, for every launch, GW2 will create a new %temp%/gw2cache folder, which can quickly add up.

Gw2Launcher is my personal launcher I made back when they did the $10 accounts, which is specifically for running multiple accounts. As such, I have features built around that, such as pre-configuring window sizes and positions, individual volume control (because the in-game master volume is bugged and applied twice to videos), the ability to cache patches (because each Local.dat file needs to be patched for ~30 MB) and download them while you're still playing. I just don't advertise.

Thanks for the info. I've heard good things about GW2/L, but (as you might guess) I see more people running GW2/LB.

Hype is the path to the dark side. Hype leads to unfulfilled expectations. Disappointment leads to anger. Anger leads to disgust. Disgust leads to "oh, new shinies! I'm back!"

@mtpelion.4562 said:
Please note that if your keyboard/mouse are able to control both copies at the same time, you will get permanently banned from the game. To protect yourself, please ensure that you are not able to control both instances simultaneously.

Im not sure this is accurate.. don't its safe unless u research this better, but I would think u could use the same keyboard if the accounts all had different button assignments so that you are controlling both accounts at the same time, but independent of each other. Im pretty sure if its like using two computers at the same time (requiring more coordination) then it should be ok as long as its one action per click. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

@mtpelion.4562 said:
Please note that if your keyboard/mouse are able to control both copies at the same time, you will get permanently banned from the game. To protect yourself, please ensure that you are not able to control both instances simultaneously.

While the first sentence is factual true, your second sentence makes it sound as if this could happen "by accident" so that people would need to pay attention for it not to happen. As far as I know, this will never happen on a normal Windows machine, as your mouse/keyboard always goes to the active window/application, no matter how many instances of it you have managed to start.

I'm not trying to spook the OP, but there are some (admittedly rare) cases where this happens. Never heard it about GW2 (or experienced it, but I never play my accounts at the same time), but I do know that Stardew Valley does this - if you tab out of the game and into a browser, the game still reacts to whatever you do in your browser. Doesn't happen when the browser is open on a second monitor. I have no idea what causes this, I just know that it has caused me to start the day over more times than I care to admit.

So, just double check to be sure, I guess is what I'm saying. No-one wants you to get a banhammer to the face because computers are weird.

I used to do this in GW1 with a total of 10 accounts, yeah I know right
I mainly only used multiple accounts whenever I was doing missions / getting to a new Place with an account or buying armor.
I used them also to sync dance in famous places, man it was so fun.

Each account had atleast 1 Vabbian armor and 1 Obby armor, the most expensive armors in the game, dancing with them in famous places drawed alot of attention,
I tried to play with 4 accounts during battles, it worked OK but it was quite hard to control 4 accounts during battles and moving them but it worked!
But I guess the only thing GW2 players who has more than 1 account are farming daily, pvp farm, and other farms. I doubt you can play 2 accounts at once in GW2 during combat since it's way different than GW1.

Back to the main point , you're able to use X accounts at the same time on your computer but you have to move them quite often, atleast that's what I heard. I Think there is an official ANet answer to this question, I'll see if I can find it and quote it for you,

If it goes to more than one window/application at once, this would have to be explicitly enforced by some software that I don't know (if such software even exists).
So in short, no user should need to "protect himself" from it, because those with machines where this can happen probably have put a ton of effort into making sure that it can happen, know well what they are doing, and that they shouldn't.

Such software does exist and in some cases it could happen as a bug in other software also. Though you are also right, shouldn't be done! I farm my 68 altachars every day M-F from about 7am-12pm and I see way too may bots (yes each is reported) they have enough problems as is providing us a great game experience getting rid of botters they don't need the added issues of multiple accounts per PC. Sifting through that data to find botters and the like is just adding more work to that departments team.

Just Multi-box ( ) is easier for both sides! And lagit, as long as you are actively using each without third party software to control the other boxes. I find Bluetooth Mice and keyboards work well for the PC's out of reach

I used to do that, actually. Log in accounts on adjacent computers for things like the jungle wurm or fire elemental daily. One would preferably be a turret-engineer and I'd just hit 1 when appropriate while participating more fully on my main. Of course, I would have to sit in front of that computer to navigate and park the character prior to the event, then switch to the other computer to do the same.

Lately I've been doing multibox, and that just to harvest the home nodes on all accounts.

I don't get how/why ANet allows people to have multiple accounts. What is the point of not just a second account (which I'd understand for ppl who play on two different regions' servers) but also a third, fourth, etc. other than farming gold and daily rewards and getting unfair advantages over others? It should be against the EULA.

Each of those additional accounts will need to have purchased at least the Heart of Thorns expanion in order for any other account to benefit from it. When you say "farming gold" then that makes no sense because during the time one person would use this additional account to "farm gold" he could just do this on his main account instead.

The difference is that additional accounts are able to get daily rewards, but most of these are account bound. While over time there will be some accumulation of gold that you can make from daily rewards that can be sold/traded, you seem to want to create a problem where there is no problem. The person who made an additional account has spent the price of 30€ (I don't know the US$ price) for the expansion. If he had instead spent this money to buy gems, he would have gotten around 2400 gems, which he then could have exchanged for roughly 500 gold using the normal gem->gold function.

You are welcome to to the math of how many month a person would need to daily log in this 30€ expensive dummy account to generate a benefit of more than 500 gold.
This might be a reason why it is not against the EULA, and why freetoplay accounts do not have the ability to give anything away to another account. Don't assume that ArenaNet was not smart enough to foresee a behaviour that you think "should be against the EULA".

YouTube “L2villagejester”.
People using belittling wording like whining/qqing" are not taken seriously by me
Same for people posting only to tell others not to post (“deal with it”-posts)

@Ashantara.8731 said:
I don't get how/why ANet allows people to have multiple accounts. What is the point of not just a second account (which I'd understand for ppl who play on two different regions' servers) but also a third, fourth, etc. other than farming gold and daily rewards and getting unfair advantages over others? It should be against the EULA.

This feels like a stretch. It’s time invested on one account or spread across several. There’s no unfair advantage to be had. Player A. manipulates 5 accounts manually doing dailies while player B. spends an equal amount of time farming Istan... I feel like player B comes out way ahead for the same time invested.

Many players purchased additional accounts when they were $10. Daily Log-in Rewards give approximately 50 (now?) Gold per month each. It's something some players take advantage of. It's easy to send the earnings to the main account.

The "advantages" of extra accounts are as stated above, plus the "1/day" limits. I don't use any of my extra 6 accounts for crafting, but do some festival 1/day stuff.

Games like GW2 really reward focused play. In general, one character doing everything, completing achievements, finishing story, etc, equals more rewards than spreading playing time over multiple characters and accounts. Unless, of course, one has endless time to devote to the game, then it wouldn't matter so much, I suppose.

So while I benefit from the many accounts and characters (70ish), I also suffer from the time spent to at a minimum log them in to collect a reward (node, chest, daily) or heaven forbid play them for any duration, since that time takes away from advancing a "main."

If you know how to play multiple accounts at one time its way more profitable than just one. I have 4 accounts on 3 monitors, and individually click for each one and could farm more than a single account for the time spent by far but it was work. i have well over 60 characters and had most 50 at various levels parked at chests to open daily, had a toon for each acct. to farm keys when I got bored that also hit my home instant everyday. My 80's would farm every event possible. Took a lot of organization and time but i was opening up 15 times more of each event chest. Seasonal events don't get me started Red envelopes being able to buy as many i could paid for my accounts in one shot. A year ago after Halloween and Xmas event i had burned myself out and quit playing for a year till PoF came out and then i only played one account. For the record most get multiple accounts for the storage. For $10 you get the bank which is 90 slots i believe to start, character slots with bag slots you could max and when I did them I made a guild for each one and maxed out the guild storage. Mine are all packed full of stuff, waiting for my return . Multi Box used to refer to controlling multiple accounts at the same time which do exist and is bannable. Multi client is running multiple accounts at once but having to click individually (gaming mouse and keyboard recommended). Hope this info sheds little light on why some have so many. MY GL had 10 Accounts and his main was #1 on GW2efficiency.